Ever wanted to be in charge? Well, in my own little world I will be, one day. Just not quite yet. I'm a bit tired at the moment... maybe I'll take over after I've had my little nap.
The United Dingdom - stating the bleeding obvious so you don't have to.
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Friday, 10 June 2016

What time is it?

Since my first tick-a-tick-a-Timex, of which I have
written before, I have always worn a wristwatch. I can’t recall a time when I
didn’t and for men of my generation, the type of watch you wore said much about
you. Which is why I now go for an affordable Seiko in a classic, plain style.
Dull, unpretentious, reliable; after all, it has a job to do. Not for me the trendy
gigantic face, nor the chronometer with too many buttons, none of which serve
any useful purpose. Breitling, Rolex, Cartier et al will never adorn my wrist
unless I simultaneously win the lottery and lose my marbles. Like your choice
of car, your choice of watch often says less flattering things about you than
you’d like and for the cost of a Navitimer I could buy a half-decent set of
nondescript wheels.

But I notice the younger generations eschew the arm-borne
timepiece in favour of... mostly in favour of never knowing what time it is. In
the age of everything you want whenever you want (no doubt they believe the EU
made this happen!) the ticking away of the hours is irrelevant. They will never
know the shared joy of the following-day post-mortem of last night’s scheduled
television. Where is the community in stream-when-you-like? Also punctuality
appears to have become a bygone courtesy; “I’m not ‘very’ late” is a poor substitute
for actually keeping to time-critical appointments.

And having a clock on your smart phone – no matter how
much you plead otherwise – is just not the same! Given that the average
under-thirty is glued to that tiny screen twenty-four-seven you would imagine
they would be more than usually aware of the time of day, yet they rarely
display evidence they are even aware of which day of the week it is. If manners
maketh man then Mathey-Tissot maketh man on time. All of which ranting was
prompted by the sight of a watchless George Osborne with Andrew Neil the other
night.

No, young Gideon, it is known, was a lotus-eater in his
heyday and heeded the hedonistic call of the wild. Not for him a deference to
convention, rather the regular and massive indulgence in time-altering
substances. If he’d worn a watch it would have been little use; it’s hard to
tell the time when you’re seeing double... at twice the speed of thought. From
time to time, stories emerge which show him in a less than admirable light and
one such anecdote was recently related to the tabloid press.

The young Chancellor-in-waiting had acquired spacious new
rooms in Magdalen College. As the son of a baronet, it was suspected that a
certain number of strings had been pulled. He held a party soon after moving in
and everybody admired the up-and-coming history student’s expensive tastes in décor.
Pissed as farts they partied into the night until George suddenly decided it was
time for bed and invited the stragglers to join him in the boudoir. They room
was dominated by an enormous double-king-size bed with an enormous brass gong above
the headboard.

“What’s that big brass gong for?” one of the guests
asked. “That’s no gong,” slurred George “that’s a talking clock!” The guests
looked at each other; by now everybody was exceptionally squiffy. “A talking
clock? Seriously?” asked the inquisitor, incredulously. “Sure,” said Osborne “I’ll
show you.” He picked up the beater and struck the gong hard. The soundwaves
pounded the air in the room and everybody flinched. Then, as the reverberations
were dying away they heard, from the next room, “You bastard! It’s half past three
in the morning!”